Some people are lucky enough to have their dream job. They love what they do, they love their coworkers, they love their office. Everyone gets along wonderfully.
But the reality for many of us, even if we love our jobs, is that conflict will arise in the workplace at one point or another. Whether it’s a disagreement over how something should be done or an insensitive comment one coworker made to another, there’s bound to be tension at times.
When this strain goes unresolved, the result can be toxic work environments, emotional distress, and declining productivity. Whether you’re a manager or not, this isn’t the type of environment you want to work in.
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Often, these problems are centered on people with narcissistic or high conflict personalities. With these people, traditional confrontation or avoidance strategies don’t work.
Instead, it’s crucial to learn conflict resolution skills for high conflict personalities and situations. These skills will empower you to de-escalate conflict, speak your truth, and preserve peace and professionalism for everyone in the workplace.
Why Traditional Conflict Responses Fail in the Workplace
For people who aren’t trained in workplace negotiation strategies, the natural reactions to conflict aren’t conducive to conflict resolution. Without this training, most people respond to conflict by attacking, withdrawing, or placating.
The problem is that none of these leads to true resolution. In fact, some of them only make the conflict worse. And when you involve high conflict personalities and add strong emotions and tension, every attempt to resolve the conflict turns into a power struggle.
Most of us avoid conflict at all costs. But narcissistic and high conflict coworkers thrive on conflict and drama because it gives them control. The more control they feel, the more they exert their toxic influence on those around them, increasing the conflict and fueling their narcissistic supply.
De-escalating situations with narcissists and high conflict people takes more than just trying your best to work with them. Their manipulative tactics and psychological games are stronger than traditional strategies. If you’re going to truly replace conflict with peace in the workplace, you need an arsenal of specific tools.
Powerful Tactics for Conflict with Difficult Personalities
When you take a course on negotiation techniques training, especially one that focuses on narcissism, you’ll learn the best techniques for dealing with high conflict personalities. These strategies can help make the workplace a more peaceful and productive environment.
Stop JADE behavior. Whether the difficult person you work with is a manager, coworker, or subordinate, they thrive on making you feel uncomfortable. One of the ways they do this is by manipulating you into justifying, arguing, defending, or explaining yourself.
Instead, don’t let excuses play into your conversations at all. Keep all your communications brief and professional. When they try to bait you into arguing, use neutral language. Short phrases like “Thank you for your feedback” or “I understand your perspective” prevent escalation
Remove your emotions from the equation. Use silence as a strategic pause when emotions run high. Choose to respond instead of react. When the difficult person says or does something particularly unfair, simply observe the situation instead of absorbing it. Keeping your emotions out of these situations helps you maintain control of the situation and your sanity.
Shift your mindset from pleasing to protecting. Dealing with difficult people in the workplace is always draining, but it’s up to you to decide how much energy it will take from you. Where your focus was on pleasing others and avoiding conflict, shift your energy to protecting yourself.
If you’re an empathetic person, this might be especially hard to do. It can feel harsh to remove emotions from your interactions and stop trying to please your narcissistic coworkers, but it’s the best way to protect yourself and other victims in the workplace. Sticking firmly to the emotionless approach, free of excuses and arguments, will help stop conflict before it starts.
Applying High Conflict Negotiation Strategies in the Workplace
Certain aspects of your job can get messy quickly if you don’t understand what it takes to lower conflict in the workplace.
First, limit contact with your high conflict coworkers. Obviously, some situations are unavoidable in a work setting. If you work closely with this person or have been asked to collaborate on a project together, there’s not much you can do to avoid seeing them every day.
But the important part of this strategy is to do what you can. Lunches, water cooler conversations, and out-of-work events are all places where you can cut contact with difficult people. Every interaction with them has the potential to explode into conflict, so try to avoid them when you can.
Next, document everything. When you do interact with them, document it all. Especially if the difficult person is your manager, send emails after your conversations as written proof of your discussions and agreed-upon terms. That way, you have a paper trail if they try to throw you under the bus or change the terms of a situation without letting you know.
Additionally, save all your emails involving these coworkers. Even seemingly trivial conversations can be useful when you’re dealing with people who use lies, manipulation, and gaslighting like it’s their second job.
Last, prepare an escape plan. Sometimes, a workplace is just too full of high conflict personalities to make the job worth it. If you find your productivity or mental health is suffering because of your difficult coworkers, you may need to leave the job for a less toxic environment. When every strategy you try just isn’t enough, bowing out of the office can protect your peace and empower other workplace victims to do the same.
Strengthening Your Conflict Resolution Toolkit
There are a few other things you can do to make your strategies even stronger. These are especially helpful if you have multiple narcissists and high conflict people in your workplace
- Hire a negotiation coach. These coaches are specially trained to teach you conflict resolution skills grounded in psychology and neuroscience. These techniques help you and your coworkers reach agreements peacefully and productively.
- Study narcissism. Narcissists don’t just do things differently; they think differently. When you understand their thought processes and motivations, you can learn how to create leverage against their manipulation
- Set boundaries. In all your conversations, keeping things respectful but firm will let your coworkers know that you won’t stand for abusive and manipulative tactics any longer. Try telling them things like, “I’m willing to continue this conversation when we can both be respectful,” or “Let’s stick to the facts.” These statements signal zero tolerance for abuse.
Replacing Conflict with Clarity
When you work with difficult people, conflict is inevitable. However, emotional chaos isn’t. When you follow proven high conflict negotiation strategies, you have a roadmap to communicate with determination. And when things become tough, arming yourself with a skilled coach and solid boundaries helps you navigate conflict in the workplace with peace and clarity.
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